of hers. Mrs. Ormonde alone would understand; it would give
her pleasure to know that Gilbert Grail's sorrow was at an end.

So many people to be benefited, and the act itself so simple, so merely
a piece of right-doing, the reparation of so great an injury. Strange
that her whole mind had undergone this renewal. Half a year ago, death
would have been chosen before this.

Lydia returned.

'Mrs. Grail will be gone in half an hour. He will see you then, Thyrza.'

Very few words were interchanged as the time passed. They held each
other by the hand. At length Lydia, hearing a sound below, went to the
door.

'You can go now,' she said, returning. 'Shall I come down with you?'

'No, Lyddy.'

'Oh, can you bear this, Thyrza?'

The other smiled, made a motion with her hand, and went out with a
quick step.

The parlour door--entrance so familiar to her--was half open. She
entered, and closed it. Gilbert came forward. His face was not at all
what she had feared; he smiled pleasantly, and offered his hand.

'So you have come to see me as well as Lydia. It is kind of you.'

The words might have borne a very different meaning from that which his
voice and look gave them. He spoke with perfect simplicity, as though
no painful thought could be excited by the meeting. Thyrza saw, in the
instant for which her eyes read his countenance, that he did not often
smile thus. He was noticeably an older man than when she abandoned him;
his beard was partly grizzled, his eyes were yet more sunken. There was
some change, too, in his voice; its sound did not recall the past quite
as she had expected.

But the change in her was so great that he could not move his eyes from
her. When she looked up again, he still seemed to be endeavouring to
recognise her.

'I didn't know whether you would see me,' she said with hurried breath.

'I am very, very glad to see you.'

He seemed about to ask her to sit down. His eyes fell on the chair
which was always called hers. Thyrza noticed it at the same time. From
it she looked to him. Gilbert averted his eyes.

'I did not come to see Lyddy,' Thyrza said, forcing her voice to
steadiness. 'It was to speak to you. I didn't dare to hope you would be
so----'

'Don't say what it pains you to say,' Gilbert spoke, when her words
failed. 'It will pain me even more. Speak to me like an old friend,
Miss Trent.'

'Can you still feel like a friend to me?'

'I don't change much,' he said. 'And it would